Here's a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle's archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.

1983

Sept. 3: For a second day, the Soviet Consulate in Pacific Heights was the scene of emotional protests against the shooting down of a Korean Air Lines jumbo jet. About 300 people held demonstration yesterday morning. Among them were members of the Unification Church, or "Moonies," whose founder is the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial South Korean who has melded a fierce anti-communism into his ideology. Eldridge Cleaver, the onetime black radical who recently has had ties with the Moonies, spoke at the rally. Many pickets carried signs accusing the Soviet Union of murdering the 269 passengers and crew aboard the airliner. In another development, San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli filed a $109 billion lawsuit against the Soviet Union on behalf of the 269 victims.

1958

Sept. 6: Police Chief Frank Ahern, the cop who clamped the lid on San Francisco vice, died of an apparent heart attack last evening at the Giants-Dodgers baseball game at Seals Stadium. His death came at the climax of the contest. With the score 4 to 4 in the 15th inning and the bases loaded by the Giants, Willie Kirkland dashed for home with what would have been the winning run. Ahern and the other thousands in the stadium jumped to their feet as Kirkland was thrown out at the plate. The chief suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed. His wife, Gertrude, tried to support his body on her lap. Former Assemblyman Thomas Maloney came to her aid from a neighboring box. Police Sgt. Frank Hughes, on duty at the stadium, carried the chief to the first-aid station. Nurse Mary O'Malley administered oxygen. Dr. Robert Palmer and two Roman Catholic priests, the Rev. William Stewart and Monsignor William Flanagan, were called to the first-aid room. Stewart administered the last rites and Palmer pronounced the chief dead. Ahern joined the police department in 1929. Known as a man of particular honesty and valor, in 1945, having steadily progressed through the ranks, he was given the job of cleaning up the city's abortion business. After a year of investigation and raids, such practitioners as Inez Burns, Jimmy Randell and Alan Anderson were headed toward prison. Burns offered Ahern $280,000 in cash - it was there before his eyes - but he arrested her anyway.

1933

Sept. 6: Milton Berle, youthful comedian, and Harry Richman, widely known stage, screen and radio entertainer, will join Fred Waring's program over at KFRC at 6 tonight. Berle, said to be the quickest working comedian developed in recent years, is also the youngest of the "big name" comics. He is only 24 and first stepped into the limelight 18 months ago. Tonight, Berle, whose previous radio experience has been limited to three guest appearances, will exchange banter with Richman. Richman will also sing a group of popular selections.

1908

Sept. 6: Miss Isadora Duncan, who is pleased with the prospect of soon revisiting San Francisco, the home of her childhood, has convinced New York that her reputation as a classical dancer rests on a firm foundation, and by this no mere jest relative to her lower limbs is meant, the idea being that the fame she has achieved is the reward of worthily directed efforts in her own line of study and of the uncommon skill which she has attained. This skill is the result of a lifetime of work in terpsichorean art.

The first striking feature about Miss Duncan is the meagerness of her apparel. She wears when dancing only a single garment. Below the knee her limbs are at all times bare. As she moves, her limbs are visible at the entire length at times, as the garment is open on each side to a point, where seemingly loose, it is bound securely around her body. Her arms are bare and the garment is low on the bosom. Accustomed as people here are to associate immodesty with the absence of conventional attire, the usual expectation at first is that inevitably there must be something indelicate about her performance, and the signal proof of Miss Duncan's high-mindedness is that from the very first moment when she steps onstage there is not the least immodest suggestion about her. So many "Salome" dancers have appeared, aiming to outdo the others in suggestiveness, that the general supposition is that there must be vulgarity in the display of every one of the classical dancers of today, and people go skeptically to look at Duncan. They find her exhibition one for refined audiences. While there is nothing suggestive about her dancing (the word "suggestive" having come to imply indecorousness), it is in a high degree expressive and unlike the sinuous cavorting "Salomes" as the barefooted girls who are to be seen in some rural districts.

Sept. 6: If you see a rat, or if your terrier smells a rat and begins scratching at your pantry floor, don't dismiss the incident without further action. The rat may be worth $50. Yesterday, Dr. Rucker of the rat-catching department of the state released 50 rats, and upon each was affixed a brass tag. Rats bearing tags will be redeemed at $50 a head. The game of "Button, button, who's got the button" is expected to be relegated to oblivion while a single tagged rat remains at large. Of course, there will be hundreds of plain, everyday rats killed in the scramble for the rewards, and that is the point. The ejaculation "Rats!" will hereafter have a new and more genteel significance.